Good - we can move on now to trying to establish genuine likely sites! It would be nice if Alikander99's contacts can add info from closer to the source to avoid us "over populating" with every Romanesque building in the area .
Might be worth adding some text to your description of the site to explain the situation re our changes from the official UNESCO Web site statement???

Solivagant
It would be nice to keep the reviews too. The community seems to like Ciudad Rodrigo a lot and it is still represeted in bulwarked fortifications. we could simply move them

edit: Nevermind just saw Els already did it

Solivagant
I agree. To me it was always obvious.
I think the current working title is "Espacio Románico de los Valles Altos del Ebro y Pisuerga."
Apparently, the regional governments of Cantabria and Castile and León issued a document around 1999 called "Espacio cultural románico : los altos valles románicos del Pisuerga y del Ebro : propuesta para la declaración del Patrimonio de la Humanidad," but I can't find it.

I had wondered where the rather strange English version title came from ("Romanesque Cultural Enclave in the North of Castile-Leon and the South of Cantabria" -my bold!). Why choose "Enclave" to translate "Espacio"? Is it justified by the nature of the Romanesque remains - i.e a small area "encircled" by remains of a different type?

This document from 2009 has a paragraph about the site under the Spanish version title in its section on "La Lista Indicativa española" - see page 130 - "El Espacio Cultural Románico del Norte de Castilla y León y Sur de Cantabria, situado entre los valles altos del río Pisuerga y del río Ebro, constituye un ejemplo secular de ocupación del territorio y explotación racional de los recursos que ofrece la montaña que ha llegado hasta la actualidad en muy buen estado de conservación. En este pequeño territorio hay un espacio cultural caracterizado por una elevada concentración de monumentos, más de una centena de edificios y restos arquitectónicos románicos (siglo XI y XII) en su manifestación más popular, que constituyen un importante testimonio de aquella época histórica" The above description of the geographic limits ("pequeño territorio") and the "concentration" of the Romanesque monuments within it sounds as if it could justify use of the English word "Enclave" - but "espacio" dosn't seem to convey that sense in Spanish?

We will have to continue looking for a full list of components but it does at least "officially" show a photo of 1 location - the "Iglesia de Santa María del Camino" in Carrión de los Condes, Palencia. Despite its name this is NOT as far as I am aware, already inscribed as a part of the Santiago de Compostela Route. 1 slight issue - Carrión de los Condes is NOT strictly situated "entre los valles altos del río Pisuerga y del río Ebro"!!

Ok, so news. I talked with the spanish ambassador in UNESCO and they contacted the ministry of Culture. The official definition of the site has been changed to:

The high valleys of the Pisuerga and Ebro rivers, in the North of Castilla y León and the South of Cantabria regions, preserve a high number of Romanesque buildings, reaching almost a hundred monuments of this style or with important architectural or sculptural remains.

These works of medieval architecture and sculpture from the 11th and 12th centuries and part of the 13th century paradigmatically reflect the first artistic style that can be described as European, the Romanesque. They are masterpieces of this style and an example of the dissemination of an aesthetic creation that surpassed the ecclesiastical, royal and noble intellectual aura to form part of the feelings and actions of the most popular classes, constituting a very important testimony of that historical era.

The density of Romanesque works in these regions, their artistic quality, their importance in the definition and evolution of this style, their state of conservation, in many cases barely altered by the passage of centuries, their variety in multiple aspects, their integration in the surrounding environment and privileged enclave are some of the characteristics that give these works a unique value in the European Romanesque and an exceptional contribution to the cultural heritage of Humanity.

This still doesn't give us much info, but it confirms the suspicions of Jasam that the proposal is tightly linked with the high valleys of the ebro and pisuerga. It does include both of them, so even though carrión de los condes is not between the rivers it would be included in the nomination as part of the pisuerga valley.

As for the use of the word "enclave". It might be personal bias, but in spanish "romanesque space" sounds a bit...wonky. I've seen the word enclave used several times for the region, but it's the first time I've seen the use of "espacio". Nevertheless, I think the idea, as pointed by Solivagant, is to convey the high density in a small geographical area.

I still don't know which churches might be included and honestly it's going to be pretty hard to guess it on our own. There are hundreds of romanesque churches in the region and the description of the proposal points towards a serial approach with who knows how many churches. Furthermore there doesnt seem to be a consensus about which are the most important ones. It's a pretty forgotten region of spain and many of these churches weren't even catalogued 30 years ago. My idea is to contact the regional government so they might actually make a list or dig up whatever they were trying to do. I'm mildly optimistic about this because the region has been trying to atract tourism recently and there's a few local news articles from a couple years ago talking about "the promising proposal".

oh btw, the salon rico in medina de azahara will open 6 times a day during the weekend until the 10th of december. If someone is going to be in cordoba you can get the tickets the previous monday. https://www.eldiadecordoba.es/vivir-cordoba/conseguir-entradas-Salon-Rico-Medina-Azahara_0_1836416746.html

Thanks, Alikander! I just booked a spot for Saturday morning the 9th!

Astraftis just be sure to update the review. I might go in the following weeks too.

Alikander99
I am slowly writing the review, but I do not know if it will be published in time!

To sum it up:
- it is worth it
- there is an incredible lot of people, so during festivities I would really follow their recommendations of coming 1/1:15h in advance!!!
- the tour mostly focuses on the restoration works. I would have liked more history/art, but it is still quite interesting. The guides are true professionals.

Let us know if you visit!

Here's the Nomination Dossier of the Olive Grove Landscapes. Seems to have been submitted in time for 2025.

https://www.dipujaen.es/export/files/paisajes-del-olivar/2024/PaisajesDelOlivar-Espa%C3%B1ol-REV-Completo.pdf

I will update the locations on the website, as they are different from what we had and also from the TWHS on the UNESCO website. The core zones are quite small and specific.

elsslots
I Will try to slowly read my way through It. I really wish It wasn't that long

Six Gaudí pieces aspire to be UNESCO World Heritage Sites

https://www.catalannews.com/culture/item/six-gaudi-pieces-aspire-to-be-unesco-world-heritage-sites

Spanish 5 years no submission of new World Heritage nominations to UNESCO?

Not sure that we have heard this 88th meeting decision of the Spanish Historical Heritage Council held on April 20 and 21, 2021 to suspend any new nomination from Spain for 5 years (2022 - 2026) except the already approved Menorca site and Olive Landscape.

This decision has been mentioned in newspaper and interpellation record of Castilla y León Parliament

https://www.eldia.es/tenerife/2021/07/26/orotava-tendra-esperar-2027-patrimonio-55451050.html

https://www.ccyl.es/Publicaciones/TextoEntradaBOCCL?Fichero=%5C%5CSIRDOCfiles%5Csirdoc%24%5CXML%5CEBOCCL%5C11L%5CBOCCL1100236%5CBOCCL-11-007651.xml

Hey I have been looking into the "Group of Mozarabic buildings on the Iberian Peninsula" site. It seems to be pretty popular in the community and I would say it's the most promissing site for Spain rn. There's only one issue...

Four of the ten locations are dubiously mozarabic (Santa maría de Melque, San Pedro de la mata, San Pedro de la nave and quintanilla de las viñas). The case of santa María de Melque is particularly appaling because the very text says it was founded in the late seventh century and construction continued until the ninth, which would entruncate the building with the Visigothic tradition and barely get it into the given chronology (which btw I think was altered just to get this site in).

The main problem is that there's still a lot of debate about the dating for some of the sites. This is mostly because we have so few visigothic buildings standing that it's hard defining their style and as such we're left with purely archaelogical studies to define the chronology of the properties. To this problem I see two solutions. Either Spain takes some of the more problematic elements out of the list, or they make a new site based on the visigoths akin to that of the longobards in Italy.

I think the latter would probably find support from ICOMOS, mainly because of a phrase in the advisory body evaluation of the italian site. When discussing the role of the lombards Icomos says: "The Lombards played an essential role, along with the Visigoths and the Franks". I think this indicates that they're at least interested in seeing proposals from the franks and visigoths.

So i'm somewhat confident that we might see a future visigoth proposal based on some of the churches in "Group of Mozarabic buildings on the Iberian Peninsula" site. Apart from that, there's also some other properties that could be added, like san juan de Baños, Saint fructuoso de montelios, Santa Lucía del trampal, Reccopolis, Pla de Nadal and Arisgotas and possibly san giao de Nazaré. Though honestly it would be a pretty lackluster site. Unfortunately not much of the visigothic grand churches and palaces has lasted until today.

Btw, There is a visigothic site attempting inscription, though imo in a very weird way. Catalonia has been pushing for the sea of Egara to become a whs based on its pictorial decoration. I very much doubt ICOMOS will buy it, because thre's not much left, but it's an interesting idea.

So there's my rambling